Rubbing it in

Michael Cook, the black-shirted and ebullient group executive at
Investa Property Group
, is rarely – well, never – wrong. Except once. This year he bullishly predicted that Investa would sell one of its Sydney towers more quickly, and for more money, than his more realistic fellow group executive, Campbell Hanan, thought possible. So they put a bet on it. And Hanan won. Friday’s Australian Financial Review carried a simple advertisement with the words: “I was wrong . . . Michael Cook." Significantly, the page was headed, Reality check. The ad, suitably framed, sat in Cook’s place at Investa’s end-of-year executives’ dinner on Friday.